DresdenBBQ

@nasKoI think he means that the towns themselves would spawn at random locations. For example, Muldraugh could be in the northeast portion of the map or West Point in the actual wast lol.
 
@Vonthis will never happen because a) the map is based on the real world locations of the towns (and soon to be city) in Kentucky. If you look on Google Maps you can easily see that everything lines up really well even though some locations are fictional. b) the engine limitations of the game. The tiles and structures themselves are actually just the map rendered into the game. The engine doesn't spawn in the walls and such, they are predetermined. The devs would have to create different maps for each randomization and at that point, you could just learn each map defeating the purpose of your suggestion. The only way to circumvent this would be to create dozens of different maps and that would just take way too long to be practical. There's too much still the devs are working on or plan to implement. People are already mad about MP taking as long as it has, imagine if they said it'll be another 2 years because they are going to create random maps.

So you get a random map each time, towns stay the same but placed at different locations.
Could even add small "monuments" like a random water pump well, or something of value. 

Would keep the game spicy and encourage an adventure. Instead of encouraging "get to your favorite spot, play defensive until you lose"
 
Yay / Nay ? 

Best game music I have ever heard:
You got nothing on me

hey I forgot to wear this one

Hell yeah we brought this thread back from the dead!!! Lots of folks here listenin' to metal and pop. A lot more metalheads than I would've thought, so I figure I gotta spice things up with some good ol' country thrown into the mix! I won't throw too many at y'all but these two are definitely headbangers!
 
 

Hell yeah we brought this thread back from the dead!!! Lots of folks here listenin' to metal and pop. A lot more metalheads than I would've thought, so I figure I gotta spice things up with some good ol' country thrown into the mix! I won't throw too many at y'all but these two are definitely headbangers!
 
 

What's not clear here? The promised deadline has passed. A long time ago. It would be nice to learn a new one - the right one.

My lord, Louisville looks so cool!!! You can already tell on MP servers that Louisville is gonna be HELL to be in. High loot spawns, high zombies, exactly how it should be. It should mean the rest of the map is less looted too, with more folks joining in on the Louisville slugfest, it'll be cool to see how all of this shakes up the dynamic of multiplayer servers!!!

From what I looked up on them and where they're placed, it shouldn't affect them at all. Not remotely close to each other. Of course other buildings could overlap if there are some newer ones in their locations but at the very least LV won't come out of the sky like a behemoth and crush them all single-handedly.*

*citation needed.

Looking forward to Louisville  and making a base would be something quite nice  to do.

Can you please take another look at vehicle power in the upcoming update? Towing has become fairly miserable for the most part as vehicles have very little torque. If you go off road (which for locations such as the farm in Muldraugh you have no real choice) vehicles will come to a stop if they shift up to second gear while towing another vehicle. Reverse has far more power for some reason (possibly helped by the fact it doesn't change gear) and that currently is one work around to get vehicles to the farm. Not really ideal and not realistic.
 
Heavy vehicles also shouldn't be struggling to tow small cars either.

Hello all!
 
Last Thursday we released Build 41.54 to the IWBUMS public beta, and right now we’re working on a quick 41.55 patch (most likely released next week) so we can balance it from public feedback and fix up a few bugs.
 
Here’s what the changelist currently looks like, the highlights of which run as follows:
 
Adjustments to the new soundscape from Noiseworks – primarily in instances where gameplay messaging was getting lost in the sound mix and the zoom. Also: changes to the mix balance for reverb return/sends, rain surfaces, adjustment to camera zoom effect on world sounds, and some mix tweaks for too loud sounds. More 3D items, and some resized ones. Some animation smoothening for a few instances in which folk were getting unfairly killed Some much needed balance for the player’s ability to run through a crowd of zombies without being stopped or falling. Something fun for the vehicle modders (in an area that we won’t be covering as soon as we’d like ourselves) that top modder iBrRus prodded us about – which should see some cool new stuff appearing on the Workshop.
NOISEWORKS NEXT
Phase 2 of the Noiseworks is underway, and will be mixed into IWBUMS builds and patches as we go. Some aspects of it will require TIS-side code resources (like vehicle-related sounds, which we recognise could be improved) so will be addressed a little later down the line while we work elsewhere. That said there’s plenty of other cool stuff that will be dropping in from Noiseworks from build to build.
Of primary note for those with a favourite weapon that don’t sound quite right yet: far more individual sounds are on their way.
Right now weapons are divided between six different loosely-affiliated groups each with a generic set of Hit / Swing / Break sounds:
 
Blunt Metal Weapons (Light, Medium, Heavy) Blunt Wood Weapons (Light, Medium, Heavy) Blunt Plastic Weapons (Light Medium, Heavy) Blade Weapons (Light, Medium, Heavy) – these are used for small Axes as well Stab Weapons (Light, Medium, Heavy) Heavy Axes
These share a generic set of additional hit surface sweeteners, but right now in the game a generic one is used as default hit for impacts on metal/wood/plastic/stone surfaces, and a set of sweeteners for hit impacts on body/head surface (a gore layer).
 
We’re planning to extend these with additional surface sweeteners covering all in game surfaces for different weights, and additional impacts for bodyparts that fit the specific weapon type that aren’t generic – as they are at the moment. The more individual stuff that is added, the more accurate the noises of the various strikes and blows of the different weapons will be.
 
On top of this the NW gang will be adding new additional weapon sounds for all the special weapons like music instruments etc. and extending the current set for greater variety.
 
Also on the menu, meanwhile, is making world sounds inside buildings sound different based on relative elevation level to the player, and also to incorporate object condition to affect certain sounds like door bangs for instance.
 
Something else that will have far less of a generic catch-all soundbase will be with water-related sounds – right now water coolers don’t sound like water coolers, it doesn’t sound quite right when you are filling a bottle from a body of water and the like.

41.56+
Beyond what is (probably) next week’s patch there are many and varied different functions and features bubbling away – alongside, clearly, the Multiplayer Strike Force at General Arcade who are reporting continued good progress with their work that we’ll look more deeply into in the next dev blog.
 
In terms of SP additions, we have the entire map of (our version of) Louisville now ready to go into internal testing.
 
This does not mean it’s ready for public consumption (there’ll still be a lot to do with zoning, working out spawn stuff, new loot definitions for new stores, zombie heat maps etc etc) but it does mean that we will have boots on the ground looking for bugs and hunting out issues.
 
On top of this all the polish done on the current map, like the curved roads and general improvements to wilderness and shorelines, which will all get its first major runout too.
 
This will be a HUGE milestone for all our map team – Mash, Binky, Ayrton, Xeonyx and RingoD – and we’d like to thank all of them for their hard work even if we will initially be rewarding them with a big pile of bugs to fix.
 
Please note that the map being in internal testing will not necessarily mean it’s part of 41.56 / 41.57 or any other imminent-ish numbered build. It’s too early to say and there’s still a lot of work required to get it into the game proper.
 
We will also likely be overhauling connected systems, like spawn points, alongside it – and there’s a lot of other features we can and will be getting in earlier.
 
Primary amongst these is the new Foraging/Search function, which we are still steadily improving behind the scenes. Recent additions include the ability to spot the newly super-small 3D items like keys and berries within the same system, and a cool saturation effect in the world shader to make it clearer when the activity has been engaged.


 
We have also been considering tying the system to other ‘hidden’ things that are easily missed in the game, such as the hidden floorboard stashes currently connected to the discovery of annotated maps.
 
PZ ON THE GO
We got a present from kindly old Uncle Gabe in Seattle the other day.
PZ looks and sounds great on it, but there’s a few minor control issues that could do with some polish. We should have them licked in time for the launch though.
 

 
Thanks all!

 
This week’s bog roll hoarder from TChrist over on Steam. A changelist of all IWBUMS patches since the 41 beta was released can be found here. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too!

Wow that sound design is phenomenal, the audio will be somethin' else once it's released. Everyone will be able to tell since sound is such an important part of this game, I like the touch with the different sounds for boots/sneakers. 

Wow that sound design is phenomenal, the audio will be somethin' else once it's released. Everyone will be able to tell since sound is such an important part of this game, I like the touch with the different sounds for boots/sneakers. 

Talented screenshotter!
 
This update will not go live this week, no.
 

Always the same story with Indiestone. Having updates and stuff but never updates pushed
 
Getting a strong hatred towards you for having so much good stuff that just keep coming! But we just have to wait and wait! Most games today get worse and worse for every update but PZ we claw after updates like they where BRAINS!
 
I want curved roads and stuff! And the best for Indistone! Get 41 done so the game bloom up!
 
 

Howdy, pardnerz! This time, we’re taking a look at one of the most subscribed Project Zomboid mods of all time: Filibuster Rhymes’ Used Cars (a version of the mod for Build 40 can be found here.) The mod’s description promises a “handful” of new vehicles, but you’d have to have pretty big hands to fit all 90+ new vehicles! 
 

 
The vehicles all spawn naturally within the base game’s “traffic” and replicate the simple but beautiful graphical style of our existing cars.
Along with a variety of new sedans, compacts, SUVs, police cars, and pick-up trucks similar to the vehicles we’re used to, the mod adds heavy box trucks and flatbeds, fuel trucks, big yellow school buses, military Humvees, and some more retro cars like rusted pick-ups and a certain famous rear-engined German car from the 1960s. Filibuster even went to the bother of creating fictional lore-friendly names for his vehicles, so they fit even more snugly into our game. 
 

 
Each of the vehicles have unique handling characteristics and add more options for vehicle strategies. Should you pick the reliable old compact, the speedy sports car, or the huge and roomy but tediously slow truck? (You should choose the nippy Pazuzu truck, objectively the best vehicle in the mod).
 

 

 
We headed on down to Filibuster’s lot and, after agreeing to a sweet deal on a 3-wheeled Chevalier Dart, got him to answer a few questions for us about himself and his mod.
 
Filibuster

 
Hello Filibuster! Who are you in real life?
 
I’m pretty much just a slacker with a fat diabetic cat. Nothing too exciting, honestly.
 
How did you first discover PZ? Why do you like it?
 
I got it way back on Desura. I really like more slow-paced hardcore survival games, stuff where you’ve gotta plan a little bit instead of just going buck wild. I rarely stick with a game for more than a few weeks, but me and my friends played Build 40 multiplayer for like three months straight!
 
How did you get into PZ modding? Did you have experience making or modding other games previously?
 
The most experience I had with Blender was smashing together two models like a caveman beating on rocks to add some arms to the gun models in System Shock 2. Most of my modding in other games has been simple stuff like changing weapon damage in config files.
 
When did you start developing your used car mod? How long have you spent making it? How has it changed and developed over time?
 
I sometimes get into creative phases that last a while. I used to just waste time in games like Space Engineers or Interstellar Rift, then get disgusted with myself for wasting so much time. When I started modelling a few cars sometime in 2018, I just kinda went wild, ignored my girlfriend for like two months and threw a buncha models together into a pack. I can’t really tell ya how much time’s gone into it all together, but it was definitely a lotta fun.
 
It all started with a boxy, torn looking model that didn’t even light up and snowballed into 70 or 90 something vehicles and trailers. I’ve lost count! Most other stuff has just been keeping up with the game’s new features. I’m really not looking forward to vehicle interiors and animated doors and stuff, oh man…
 
Your car mod is one of the most popular PZ mods of all time. Do you have an interest in cars in real life? If so, what’s your dream car?
 
Man, I never expected the mod to blow up like it did! It’s crazy to think that something like 90k people are using it. 
 
I used to be super into older muscle cars. I had a 1971 Impala for a good few years. It was beat to shit, had a rusted-through leaky vinyl roof filled with Great Stuff™ foam, no working AC, but I loved it (still do) and wanted to add it to the game. I also had an ‘83 El Camino and a ‘68 Bonneville, but I think I’ve gotten to the point where I prefer the ease and comfort of modern stuff. Old stuff is so much easier to work on, though. (Like, the engine compartment of my Impala was an empty aircraft hangar compared to my Corolla!) 
 
As for my dream car? I used to really want a 1968 Buick Wildcat or LeSabre convertible. Now I’m thinkin’ I’d like another El Camino.
 
Do you have a favourite from your own vehicles in the mod? Have players given feedback on their favourites? Or least favourite?
 
Shoot, that’s kinda a hard choice. I guess I’m more drawn to the Suburban and the Blazer when I’m playing. I’m pretty happy about some of the references I’ve put on stuff, like the moving truck or Pazuzu box trucks. A lot of people seem really thrilled over the military stuff and easter egg vehicles I’ve thrown in there.
 
How difficult is it for you to model new cars, and keep them consistent with the style of the base game’s graphics? How long does it take you to debug them?
 
Making new cars has gotten a LOT easier since I first started. I still have to Google half the stuff I’m trying to do on Blender. I’ve never been super artistic, so the texturing was more of a science than an art to me. I tried to copy the vanilla style as much as possible and it worked out somehow. If the game didn’t go for the low poly style, there’s definitely no way I could match it.
 
Scripting and debugging the vehicles was actually more difficult than modelling them when I first started. You’d have to change a few settings for, like, tire locations, start the game, test, close it, change, start, test, repeat. Thankfully, TIS added some tools to debug mode that make it super simple now!
 
How have you found the PZ community? How helpful has their feedback been? Is there anyone in the PZ community you would like to give a shout-out/thanks to?
 
I’m not really the most social dude, but I’ve had lots of helpful bug reports. Sometimes when I add in a buncha stuff, I miss some really small, stupid little thing that screws something big up. It’s definitely nice when someone catches that.
 
And heck yeah, I’ve got some people to thank! Super early on, Soul Filcher helped me out with getting the models to load. Then Fenris Wolf wrote pretty much ALL the code for the old model loading system and made it super-efficient and simple for even someone like me to understand!
 
My buddy Blair (Planet Algol) has been helping me with fuel trailers recently. And by helping me out, I mean he literally wrote all the code for it!
 
Shout-out too to Hurley who helped test the last version, and MrDanny who’s been really nice and helpful to people in my Discord who are learning to mod.
 
And Charger? You get a shout out just for being Charger.
 
Finally, an obvious one, but I’d like to thank the devs for everything, ESPECIALLY the debug tools!
 
What vehicles or vehicle features would you most like to see added to the base game?
 
Repainting vehicles and customising parts would be great. Like, some having carburettors and others having fuel injection, some having a manual and others having automatic transmission. I think it’s probably already in the works, but being able to add like a luggage rack or big f-off bumper would be awesome too
 
Other than your own, which mods/maps do you enjoy or find interesting?
 
Besides testing, I haven’t actually played much in the last few years! Back in Build 40, ORGM was/is a must. Clearing out Fort Redstone was super memorable, too. The hospital there was packed to the brim with zombarinos. We had to go outside because we kept getting sick from all the bodies! Wild times, man.
 
What’s next in your modding plans? What’s the dream?
 
Blair and I have a gun mod in the works. It’s mostly modelled and planned out, we’re just waiting for changes to the vanilla game to get a little more stable so he doesn’t have to redo a bunch of code. We’ve had another idea floating around for a long while too, but we’re gonna keep that under wraps for now. It’s not gonna be a roadside picnic, so it might not even pan out. But I gotta admit, my ultimate creative dream is to make my own game!
 
Thanks to Filibuster for taking time to answer our questions! You can find his car mod here.

Wow, with the cool little LCD displays for radios and TVs I wish we had a UI overhaul for these.
Something along the lines of having a low poly radio/tv model open in a new window instead of the current UI, with usable knobs and controls.

- Reduced number of hunting knives stuck in zombies.
 
Not sure if this is needed, they are very rare now anyway. In my latest run I think I maybe found 6 hunting knives in close to 1500 zombies killed.
 
It would be cool if the number of better weapons on zombies increased at least slightly with time passed.
 

Oh man those 3D Objects... MMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
 
 

Well, two weeks takes ages to get through right? Here we are with the first fortnightly Thursdoid which hopefully contains enough morsels to keep you satiated.
 
For details on what’s happening with MP, and why we’ve moved to blogs every two weeks for the foreseeable future, please check out our MP Status Update from last time.
IWBUMS 41.51
As we discussed last time, we have six months worth of polish, changes, additions and fixes waiting to go into the IWBUMS Build 41 Public beta that are completely unrelated to the parallel MP work.
In this past two weeks, then, we have removed/disabled its WIP multiplayer components, and are now preparing to release this as a beta update.
 
The changelist is pretty vast, and can be found here if you are interested.
 
Sometimes in the past when we have released builds with lengthy gestation times they have been buggier than we’d have otherwise liked, which is why we are putting this through a lot of testing – and are currently opening it out to an expanded pool of internal testers over the coming weekend. Please note that when we talk about holding this build back for testing, it’s not in the same league, stadium or planet as the testing for the MP overhaul, we just have to do our due diligence after all the talk of being careful about what we release not to completely break the current b41 build by hurrying to get going with the builds again.
 
This new version also includes some fairly foundational changes like updates to the Java and LWJGL we are using, that will improve a legion of compatibility issues we’ve often come up against, and many optimizations.
 
Likewise there is a big savegame file size optimization going into this version, which will mean that your current savegame will NOT be compatible. But, clearly, fret not – the current 41.50 version will remain available to you, and step-by-step savegame transfer instructions will be provided should they be required.
NOISEWORKS SOUND UPGRADE
The Noiseworks full soundscape upgrade has just gone into its first round of testing, and we’ve collated a full list of bugs and missing / wrongly wired sounds back over to them.
 
Primary issues include some rethinking of how we’re doing car noise due to some engine sound issues, lots of stuff that needs an adjustment in how its rigged, and a few sounds that don’t entirely fit the action on-screen. We’re making good headway with all this, but it’s probably best to expect its appearance in 41.52.
 
A video, and then a few tester quotes.
 
 
 
 
“The ambient sounds of the wildlife is amazing. I found myself a few times just listening to it all. hearing the zombies shuffle outside a building you are in can put you on edge, but you think you have time until that first bang on a door or window which will make you jump. And the rain sounds changing as it intensifies is amazing, you feel an urgency to immediately seek shelter, you know it’s about to get bad outside.”
 
“The game feels a lot more… full (?) with all the noises. I noticed it had tactical advantages too, as I heard the footsteps of a bunch of zombies around a corner before I got there. That was super cool.”
 
“WOW the UI makes sounds now??? Did not expect that it is awesome. Also the tweaks to the This is How You Died screen for loading into the world and all are incredible.”
 
“I haven’t felt suspense like that while playing for a long time, the jump-scares really get you as well. The new sounds give it a completely new, different experience imo, like just the eerie silence when you walk into a house all of a sudden, instantly makes you put your guard up and listen out.”
3D ITEMS
Also for likely inclusion in 41.52 are the 3D items that ‘Rockstar Mark’ has provided – which will mean that we no longer will have to use inventory icons for items left on the floor.
 
We still have to make sure these don’t dampen performance when used in extravagance, but they are already paying dividends in terms of the ‘zed stories’ we tell in abandoned houses – the frat boy zombies will have real-looking beer and chips on the floor now, while the ‘sex zombies’ we suggest were having rumpy pumpy will have real-looking clothes strewn on the floor around the bed.
 
This has also allowed for RJ to put in an extension of the world-building ‘Marie Celeste’ nature of various homes within the Knox Event – putting items on tables to suggest what was happening (or about to happen) in the build up to disaster striking.
Someone here, for example, was about to bake a cake.
This will be expanded on heavily in future, with our hopes that all items present on shelves will represent the actual items. This is a long term goal however.
 
In terms of gameplay the 3d items will bring, we do plan however in the more immediate future to make tables into containers, which allow items to be placed on them and be visible at a glance. This will surely be a welcome feature for those packrats looking for some extra storage space.
 
Also, Mark just sent us these, which should much better allow us and those like us to simulate our bedroom floors within the game with more accuracy.
MAP WORK
As discussed last week we are bumping the urban map expansion, our PZ version of Louisville, up the running order of releases – though it’s still too far off to pin down in any particular version.
 
This week Jamie (Xeonyx) has been on ‘Operation Building Heighten’ – as we have increasingly become aware that we need to reinforce how verticality in the city’s innermost districts will be a big part of the feeling of difference between it and our existing rural areas.
 
We have an upper limit of seven storeys and a rooftop in PZ, which is an unavoidable performance constraint (and also something of a balance issue even if we one day surmounted it) but it should still feel urban, new and different to what’s currently available. Here’s some of Jamie’s building heightening in action:
Kukrapok/Ayrton meanwhile continues with his own mission to bring more realistic curved roads and road patterns to both the existing and new areas of the PZ map.
There’ll also clearly be loads of new tiles and decorations that come with the map update and, while the blog writer doesn’t find it hugely exciting, I am reliably informed that the ability to spruce up your bases with lovely new vegetation will be of encouragement to some.
NEXT TIME
As discussed in our last blog, when we return for our next dev update we will get the latest from Yuri and Andrei on MP, who have now an entire month to do deep dives into their work without us poking them with a stick every week for something to show the world – as well as all the SP latest similar to that discussed above.
 
In the interim we will also put up the next Mod Spotlight from Pat_Bren, who this month will be talking to none other than the elusive Snake. Thanks all for reading!
 
This week’s featured image from KPKPlays. A changelist of all IWBUMS patches since the 41 beta was released can be found here. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too! Our thanks to all bratty stepsisters out there for refusing to relinquish their gaming PC!

THE BAD NEWS This week we have been playing the MP build extensively, to try and get a clearer and more solid idea how much work would be required to get it into a state we’d be comfortable releasing, and have increasingly become aware that it’s not good enough. We have been too optimistic, and for that we are extremely sorry.
 
Advances have been made, and the quality of where it is going is clear from our many tester testimonials and gameplay sessions, but since the (vital) transitions to zombies on the client it is not even close to the quality that the game or our players deserve, even for a beta. Furthermore, the deeper we’ve looked into it, the more systemic issues deep down have reared their heads.
It needs more time in the oven. We simply cannot release it half-baked. You don’t have to look far in gaming to see what can happen when you do.
 
We recognise that (especially in the past two weeks) we have been making cautiously optimistic noises – but put simply the more we played, the more we became aware of deep-rooted issues that it would be near-impossible to fix in a ‘live service’ situation. 
 
Project Zomboid has every chance of being extremely popular when we release MP – it’s something that we’ve read from people everywhere, and increasingly something we’ve quietly believed ourselves. As we’ve said multiple times in the past, the multiplayer release of 41 is by far the most important build in Zomboid’s history, and if we don’t stick that landing it would be bad.
 
As it stands the MP build we’re playing internally isn’t robust enough to cope with potentially huge floodgates being opened upon it. Support requests, tech queries and bug reports would simply drown us – and the player and community experience would be poor in the absolute extreme. 
 
We had a big meeting with General Arcade, and went through everything that could (and should) still be done to make PZ a MP game that could both stand the test of time, and a huge launch day. Something that would keep multiplayer servers populated and not result in disappointment for our community that have been so patient for so long.
 
This will likely be a much longer wait than we’ve been hoping, and particularly in light of the last two weeks of misguided hopefulness over improvements that while exciting, in the cold hard light of day still are far short of what we would dare release. 
 
We have long shied away from giving any form of ETA, but in the interest of ensuring we are not stringing anyone along with vague notions of a timescale Thursdoid after Thursdoid, we have agreed with our MP team that anything up to six months should be the ballpark we’re now aiming for when it comes to getting a Build 41 MP release into player hands to a level of quality we’ll be confident it won’t blow up in everyone’s faces. 
 
We know this will be of disappointment for many — and we’ll likely receive some flak for this decision — which is understandable, especially given the noises we’ve been making in the Thursdoids recently. 
 
But we ask those that are upset by this news please to bear in mind other recent releases that people were begging for, and getting increasingly hyper-frustrated at the frequent delays — only to finally have it in their hands, as they facepalmed and asked themselves why the hell this wasn’t held back further??
 
That’s what we’re doing — because we’re lucky enough to be in a position we’re able to do that, both financially, as well as without marketing spends or boardroom pressure forcing our hand, and we are committed to the fact that while we feel the pressure from the community’s frustrations at the wait as well as our own desire for it to be ‘done’, we will not allow that to blind us to putting something out that will end badly for both us and our community that want to see the game grow. We may get a bloody nose for delaying it further and for this long, but we’ll take that gladly to ensure that doesn’t instead happen on release–as that’s a bloody nose we might not recover from.
 
This has been an immensely difficult week for us — people sometimes forget that we want this build out there too. It’s not just a game to us but our daily lives, and the march toward a multiplayer release — the moment we’ve desired to see for so long vanishing away months into the distance, and the prospect of continuing that climb for another six months is heartbreaking to us. 
 
Nonetheless, it’s 100% the right call — we will not waver, and when all is said and done and multiplayer has been out for months and everyone is playing it, we promise everyone — ourselves and our community — will be glad we made this call, instead of releasing in a soon forgotten whimper. 
 
We may take our time, but we get the job done in the end. Hopefully the almost unanimously positive reception to the long awaited animation update proved that to be the case. I honestly believe we wouldn’t be where we are today if we weren’t just as strict back then on what we put out, when everyone was chomping at the bit to play it, bugs and all, and couldn’t fathom why we were being so careful and protective for such a long time. Now people have had it for a long while, no one would want to go back in time and have us retroactively release the anim build 6 months earlier than we felt comfortable doing so, and risk it crashing like a lead balloon and damaging the game’s reputation and future. Our caution led to the most success Zomboid has ever enjoyed. We know the same will be true about multiplayer when people are finally playing it.
 
We’ve discussed with GA about getting two more internal QA engineers the MP team will have direct access to day to day while working, to allow them to more quickly diagnose and test stuff with more players outside our TIS internal tests. 
 
They are also on the lookout for additional resources for the coding team to speed things up. Though it’s worth pointing out that this will require some significant time to learn the codebase and get up to speed for any new developer, which is why it was never a practical solution before our decision to commit to this longer delay with which to capitalize on another coder. 
 
We hope with the changes we make, along with many organizational changes to improve our internal workflow with GA, we can deliver something sooner, and will of course continue looking for new avenues to speed things up — but for all intents and purposes we’re committing to this period of delay to make sure it is definitely achievable and no one should be under any illusions of expecting it sooner. 
 
 
THE GOOD NEWS
It’s not all bad news however. This longer and more defined schedule of getting MP up to scratch makes it clear that we can’t just continue this release drought in the meantime. 
 
Therefore we are going to start releasing IWBUMs builds with new content in the interim, rather than holding back until the MP build is complete as was our original plan.  
 
We will be removing MP elements from the current trunk code that would interfere with the single player game, and releasing a six month backlog of changes, fixes, optimization and upgrades waiting to go into the game. LWJGL 3 and java 15 upgrades in particular that will improve performance and compatibility, not least a new fancy garbage collector we’ve never had the opportunity to use before that should all but eliminate any periodic pauses that have plagued our game in the past.
 
After this, we will be starting to release additional content builds to tide the community over in the wait. We have to be somewhat careful on the style of content we add, so as to not make the MP work more complicated and hold it back further, but stuff you should be able to look forward to in the coming months include:
 
Noiseworks sound overhaul. Noiseworks are due to provide the first complete version of their ‘round 1’ additions to the game, replacing all sounds in the game, for testing and feedback from TIS. Those keeping up with the Thursdoids will have a good idea of what this will bring. After some testing, and adjusting sounds to tester and community feedback, we’ll be getting this out to you as soon as we can. Noiseworks will then be continuing with adding additional sounds, and a procedural music system, which will bring even more atmosphere to the game.
  Map updates. We’re pushing toward a release of Louisville, which nears completion outside some zoning work and bug-fixing. It’s unclear how much time remains to polish this up to releasable standard, but it seems very likely it will drop before multiplayer. Non-90 degree roads with curves, improvements to the existing map, and even perhaps beyond our original scope of the map now our mapping team has grown.
  Several other really cool gameplay features. We’ll talk about them in the coming Thursdoids when we can feel confident they will drop in the interim period.

  THURSDOIDS
Speaking of Thursdoids, a primary piece of feedback we’ve had from the MP team has been the detrimental effect that the weekly cycle of blog updates on MP progress has had on the development process. 
 
A weekly development sprint, where results are desired to show off or talk about makes it much harder to work on longer term improvements. To be honest this is not the first time this has been brought up or felt by the TIS team, the weekly blogs have always stacked a lot of pressure on our shoulders, only ever being 7 days away. But we are both immensely proud of our weekly blogs, and have found them to be a huge part of keeping our community content and informed. Truth be told, we have also been somewhat nervous that reducing their frequency suddenly may be perceived by our community as some kind of winding down, rather than something that would improve development in any way, and so have long been resistant to change.
 
However, in the interest of aiding the MP team in having the time to do longer and less interrupted work on features without the pressure to provide small incremental improvements that clearly haven’t been enough to make the leaps to release that are needed–we are going to make the following changes to how we release Thursdoids over the coming six month period.
 
We will be doing bi-weekly Thursdoids (that’s every two weeks). These will likely be more content-packed, and have more time spent writing them. They will hopefully provide much more bang for your buck and less likely to have us repeating ourselves.
  We’re only going to focus on multiplayer development every other Thursdoid, allowing the team to have a solid month to make longer term, deeper and more substantial improvements without worrying about us coming knocking for stuff to show or test. The alternate Thursdoid will focus on the single-player interim updates, features and fixes coming in the shorter term. That all said if we do have cool MP stuff to talk about, we’ll be sure to let you know regardless of what week it falls on.
  We’ll see how these Thursdoids go down over the coming months, and will decide based on that what to do once multiplayer releases whether to go back to weekly Thursdoids or to carry on with bi-weekly.
 
Thanks for reading, and apologies again for the major misstep in our recent enthusiasm. While we did state it was ‘cautious optimism’, we regret letting short term improvements and perhaps a bit of wishful thinking colour our blog updates. Sometimes you just get lost in the weeds and an uptick one week is deceptive to how much work really remains. We hope the firmer date will give solace to those who check week after week to frustration, who are largely only interested in multiplayer, that they can safely put our game aside for a while, and when to start looking again. And to everyone else, we hope getting fresh content again will help the time pass that little bit quicker.

 
Much love
 
The Indie Stone

Hahaha I didn't even have to look more than a paragraph away to see what happen when you release something half-baked. That second sentence was far enough.
 
Seriously though, I love you guys and long for a time when I can return and play with a friend (or maybe I can make a second friend). Please MP us soon.

Y'all what IS this community. Any other game makes even a positive announcement, and negative nellies will pile on about things that don't even have anything to do with the post. Here the devs literally say "we're going to move the timeline back 6 months" and there's nothing but support?!!
 
Kudos to the mods and whoever makes this dark magic happen.

It is a truly a disappointment but thank you for the transparency.
Game development is really a difficult task, and you guys truly deserve the respect instead of hateful, toxic opinion. 
 
Take your time, 2 weeks Thursdoid seems a good idea. We already wait a long time, 6 months is nothing haha.